the other side

Menu

Post navigation

Low tide beauty on a good day

Here’s Gen walking with Cole at low tide – one of her rare outings on what must have been a good day. This amazingly low tide comes with the full moon and I wish it were like that every day so that we could take advantage of it more often. It was passed the golden hour but still, I think it’s an amazing photograph.

I love to see Gen up and out! This photo reminds me of the Washington coast: gray and drizzly, but still beautiful. Seattle is actually on a sound (a big inlet), so it’s long drive out to the open, Pacific coast. I used to drive down to the Oregon Coast SE of Portland for Memorial Day weekend (in late May) in my 20s before getting sick and it looked like this and was freezing! They have a boardwalk and sell saltwater taffy and my brothers and I would go to big bonfires on the beach at night–all nostalgic things now. Funny how it’s 100 F here in May, but the Washingtonian is still in me. :)
Thanks for posting–great shot!
A

Sounds exactly like here! And wow, can we ever freeze here! Often the sun will be hot and the weather will be dry during the day and then at night with the East wind it gets so chilly and windy it feels like fall! Here is a beautiful area. I have so many fond memories of growing up – digging for clams, cooking marshmallow over the bonfire, spending days at the beach. Something else we have in common! :)

:) No freezing temps in the Pac NW for the most part, but people dig for clams and all that. Lots of fish and forests. The rest sounds very similar, but I grew up in the big city. We camped a lot when I was a kid in the ’70s, but I truly hate the outdoors as an adult. Lol!

Oh, I didn’t know you’d been to B.C.! It looks like Washington, except Vancouver is on the open ocean (sort of blocked by Van. Is.) and it’s so much more contemporary in its architecture since you went. Seattle is only about a 2-hr drive from there. I don’t recall any huge ants, but lots of HUGE spiders, which I’m so freaked out by. Yet another thing I don’t miss! Yes, pine trees for miles so that’s where most of the lumber comes from (or nearby states). Also explains all the pulp mills in the western part of the state! Lol! So stinky. When I’ve gone back, it looks like a jungle as I’m used to the desert now. Also, lots of smells will remind me of my hometown, like a wood-burning fire (not allowed here). Sometimes you can smell the wildfires and then it’s WA in the air. Odd.

By trip to BC was with school when I was 16 I think. We were in Bella Coola, right down in the Rockies. Scary although beautiful. We didn’t get to spend time in Vancouver which really was a real waste. It was still a very nice experience. Glad I went. Must be quite the difference for you now! I can’t imagine!

I just Googled that. Holy middle of nowhere. I think you were in the Cascades–the mt. range starts in WA (or vice versa) but divides the state so a bit east. The Rockies cut through the border with Alberta. I’m pretty sure that’s where Whistler is (Cascades)–went there as a teen and HATE skiing! Rather lost as it looks like you were on/near the coast? When you get outside of the Seattle metro area before you cross the Cascades to the east, it’s all thick, pine forests so a similar look. I’ve been to eastern B.C. as a kid and it was like that, too.

Oh, I was crossing one of the passes of the Cascades in WA in the summer in college to get to my mother’s and step-father’s cabin and my coolant (or ?) exploded and there I was on the side of the highway with no cell just waiting. Luckily a state patrol came by an hr. later and then got a tow truck from this teeny town in the forest-y mts. called Skykomish, which took another hr or so. I remember it like it was yesterday b/c the tow truck driver was seriously missing 1/2 his face and his arm was a mess–I think he got mauled by a bear of something. Poor guy, but I was convinced I was going to die up there on Stevens Pass–such a city girl. :) I liked the cabin (like a smaller home) on the mt. lake and taking long walks to the lodge there, but massive spider issues!
Story du jour…

WOW! Your little story there, I would have died being stuck there waiting on the side of the road. And yes, the guy probably got mauled by a bear – that’s just it!!!

And yes Bella Coola was close to the ocean. It really was beautiful but it was right down deep in the mountains and I’m telling you… the bugs and beware of grizzlies and eagles was a little much for a girl from the Maritimes. Yikes. I just wanted to go back home!

Lol! I’m a tough old broad, even at a young age, so I was OK up there in the Cascades, but the tow truck guy freaked me out as I was in the cab with him. Then the highway was closed at one spot so we had to take a detour onto a forestry road and that’s when I thought he would kill me in the woods. I totally hate the woods, despite all the hippie, camping days in my younger yrs. I always think there’s some serial killer on the loose. Haha. Actually, my step-brother and his then GF were at that cabin once and the highway patrol knocked on the door one night (I would never have opened it) to alert them to the fact that some guy had escaped from a mental institution and they thought he was in the area. Where the heck is a mental institution up there? Holy scary movie. Apparently he wasn’t joking about it, either.

This is the blog I thought I’d pass on. Jessica liked one of my posts which is how I found her. She has Chiari (post-surgery and still has issues) and is looking into EDS, but is stuck in our VA system as she’s a vet. She has quite a story if you find the long post detailing it. She also has a FB group she’s involved with, and I thought of you so figured I’d pass her site on as I don’t do FB: http://chiarisux.wordpress.com/
xo

I know. You’ll see my comments on there. WOW. I thought, why not pass it on to the Sheep (think I mentioned a blogging friend–you–whose daughter may have Chiari). Just reminded me of you as her mother is on her blog–how sweet! Like you…

Hi A. I’ve been missing for a little while. Another rut I guess. How are you doing and MM? We haven’t found Blake and I’m now assuming the chances of him coming back are rather lean. Anyway, I just hope he didn’t suffer too much…

I was thinking about you too (really!) so thanks for contacting me. I’m running on empty. I have 1 min as I have another appt. (!!) and just came on as my brother is in Spain and there was a huge train accident and I was waiting to hear from him–he’s in Madrid now, which is where the train departed from. Omg. They didn’t head that direction, so all’s OK. So sad about those people.

I’m so sorry again about Blakey. :( I really feel awful and thought he would come back. Did you get the new bird??? If so, just put a photo for a post! :)

It’s a rough week with the weather, appts., and MM saw the oncologist and had her sutures removed. Still not on the bed until I know that’s healed well. The biopsy showed clean margins even though they weren’t the crazy wide ones, but it means nothing (even the super wide ones normally aren’t curative). Her doc seemed off, like he was 2nd guessing things, and I was playing doctor way too much.

The Palladia will only work if the cancer has a specific gene mutation involved and there are no studies on cats so no stats available. He has 1 cat who’s in remission from multiple VAS tumors and that’s it! Now he used the word “recurrence” again and I was so tired and stressed and I didn’t ask for clarification. Is it VAS or not VAS (vaccine type) or some rare recurrence of the 1st cancer? Biopsy said myxosarcoma again and VAS usually says fibrosarcoma (rather the same–less known about myxo), so I don’t know. All soft tissue sarcomas and all horrible. Doc said he’s more confident it will come back than that the Palladia will work. Oh, great! Why did we do the surgery? Then he was going through the not-so-great options again aloud (off day as mentioned): body wall removal, radiation in San Diego 5 x week for 1 mo (would have to board her and hard on pets). We agreed to NOT do any of that. What changed? Was it the fact that he wasn’t expecting clean margins (again, really means nothing) or is the grade higher even though so superficial? I forgot to ask (hitting myself on the head). I had my sclerals in and could see his face and was reading him like crazy.

The Palladia is being compounded due to her weight (teeny) and we start in tomorrow night. It’ll be a liquid which should be easier is she doesn’t hate it. I’m scared about that too w/the side-effects, etc! So, a mess and another monsoon storm is coming!!! OK, sorry for the rant. I wish I could just write like D and get it out, but I prefer to blow up my friend’s comment box. That’s terrible. So sorry. I think I will post about Palladia if she does OK with it (not that I’ll know if it’s working) and then about sclerals once we get the Rx right, so I can stop doing this!

Let me know how you are. You can contact me where ever on my blog or go to my early posts that I don’t think anyone reads! We can blow those up!
Hugs! A :)

Little lamb, I just now read about your sweet bird being gone, and your lovely, amazing daughter. Oh, my heart. So, sending good good thoughts your way. Blake might be okay yet, don’t give up. And if not back to you, then maybe to somebody just a loving and generous of spirit, but don’t give up, not quite yet. Spirit knows no bounds.

Thank you K for your amazing words of kindness and comfort, and the hope that you shed on finding our little Blakey. I so want him to be out there alive and on his way back to us. We miss him so much, him and his tons of little words and sentences all glued together in the mornings.

friends and more

Archives

Meta

I am a fifty something wife,mother, sister, grandmother and friend. I started blogging as a coping mechanism during my beautiful daughter's final journey. Vic was desperately ill for 10 years after a botched back operation. Dying is a lonely journey. Not only for the sick person but also for the family. As hard as we may try to avoid death, the truth is that we do a lousy job of it. Science and medicine will certainly postpone it, even staying healthy might seem to delay it, but the harsh reality is that death does not wait for you, it does not ask you, and it does not listen to you. Death ignores your feelings and wants; you do not matter to death…Death is the only certainty in life! We need to remember that our existence here is fragile, and we never have as much time with people as we think we do. If there is someone or someones out there that you love, don’t neglect that and don’t put off engaging with them because waits for no-one... Vic's Journey ended on 18 January 2013 at 10:35. She was the most courageous person in the world and has inspired thousands of people all over the world. Vic's two boys are monuments of her existence. She was an amazing mother, daughter, sister and friend. I will miss you today, tomorrow and forever my Angle Child.

"These jewel-like paintings intuitively fuse different aesthetic traditions, folk art and old master, with natural grace and an uncanny quality that may be a species of magic." —American Arts Quarterly